Guerrilla Job Hunting – ‘Out of the Box’ Job Seekers

How are you looking for a job? Are you scouring the job boards and sending your CV to companies? Do you regularly contact a company directly? Or are you taking a more creative approach?

Sometimes a job seeker has to think ‘outside the box’ to get noticed. In creative industries especially, it takes a lot to stand out from the crowd and sometimes an unusual job application can be the only thing that gets you noticed.

Take advertising executive Alec Brownstien. Using Google Adwords, he brought the names of some of New York’s top advertising creative directors as keywords for his advert. When his prospective employers Googled themselves, an advert with a link to his online CV and portfolio appeared. He was offered a job at Y&R.

Many candidates use social networking sites when job hunting. But have you thought about advertising yourself on them? Ian Greenleigh successfully used Facebook to find a job in new media. He created an advert which included a link to a page detailing his skills and experience. Ian is now the Social Media Manager at Bazaarvoice.

‘Out of the box’ job searching techniques are most effective in industries where innovation and creativeness is prized, such as marketing or PR. But whatever industry you’re hoping to get a job in, taking a unique approach will almost certainly get your application noticed.